I used to use RegisterFly a lot but not anymore. I like their cheap prices but their system sucks. I wonder why they could not create a better system. Their programmers must be mediocre!

In this blog entry, I will go through some dos and don’ts when using RegisterFly. Should you fail to apply some of these tips I mentioned, be prepared to spend a lot of your precious time fixing them. Time is money, if you do what I say, I guarantee you will spend less time getting their system to work.

1. Do not submit replies to your support tickets if RegisterFly has not replied

I learnt this the hard way. RegisterFly puts you in a queue when you submit your support request. Should you reply to your support request, you will put to a lower position in the queue. I don’t really understand how this works exactly but I think it is very stupid. Other support systems have an urgency criteria for you to select from something like critical to not so important issues. RegisterFly uses a “first come first served” queue system. They push you back to the back of the queue if you reply to your own support ticket too many times.
I highly recommend you pick up the telephone and call their support team directly if your issue has not been resoved in a reasonable amount of time. They seem to get things done faster this way. Please try to be polite to their staff, it is not their fault. It is the fault of the people who created such an inept system.

2. Do not use their “whois protection” service

One of the things that attracted me to RegisterFly was their free “whois protection” service. Don’t use it! Why? Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t work. I remember I had to enable ProtectFly for my domains one by one because the mass update form doesn’t work!

Simply enter RegisterFly’s contact information and address in your domain’s profiles to get a “fake ProtectFly” profile. Alternatively, enter some “dummy data” and save it. Whenever you need to update your domains’ information, load it up and mass update all your domains at once. Sometimes their mass update tool does not work and you will have to update them one by one. You have been warned!

3. Create multiple RegisterFly accounts to organize your domains

I highly recommend you create multiple RegisterFly accounts to organize your domains. I use multiple accounts for the different groups of web sites I own. It is so much easier to mass update information and get support for my domains this way. You may “push” your domain to another RegisterFly account quickly and easily. This is one feature that I am very proud of RegisterFly because I have not experienced any screw ups here.

4. Always fund your account before purchasing domains

It is not a wise move to enter your credit card at the end of the domain checkout process. RegisterFly is famous for charging you for error purchases. What that means is you pay money even when the order did not go through. If you do not wish to go through lengthy chargeback and refund procedures, simply plan how many domains you wish to purchase and deposit the exact cost of those domains to your account.

One more thing… Do not use PayPal as a checkout option. I thought using PayPal during checkout means that my PayPal money will go into RegisterFly’s PayPal. My PayPal money went into my RegisterFly account instead and I had to do another order to complete my initial order. It is like paying for an item with an ATM card and having the cashier withdraw cash from your ATM card via their cash drawer and you return that cash to them. Does that make sense to you? What a waste of time!

5. Call them up if you are using a totally new DNS

If you wish to create your own DNS for your web sites, don’t use RegisterFly. Get another domain registrar to do this work. You cannot trust RegisterFly for something as important as your DNS domains.

Sometimes your web host might assign you with DNS RegisterFly has not seen before. When this happens, RegisterFly will give you an error when you try to link that DNS to your domains. I find the support staff too slow on these issues. Simply call them up and tell them to add your DNS to their “registry”. This will allow RegisterFly to let you to use this DNS for your domains. Strange I know… but this is how they work.

Conclusion

I might have more issues to bring up but this is all I can recall at the moment. I rank RegisterFly as my second worst online experience after some other major issues with some other lousy merchants. I do not recommend RegisterFly as your domain registrar of choice because the wasted time you spend fixing your issues will cost you more time and time equals to money, therefore you are wasting your precious time and money on them when you could get better deals for your domains elsewhere. If you must use RegisterFly to save money, I recommend following some of all of the tips I mentioned in this blog entry.

Tagged As: dns, domain+name, domain+registrar, domains, registerfly

Categories: Internet Marketing | 18 Comments »

There is no perfect domain registrar on this planet. Over the years I have purchased domains from at least 5 different domain registrars and I have compiled a list below on where I get my domains from today.

.ORG Domains

Reseller Club is my first choice of .ORG domains because they cost only $1.49 for the first year if you are a Reseller Club reseller. You will need to put in a deposit of $199 to open a reseller account. Once you have done that, you may create a customer account to buy domains at your wholesale price.

.NET Domains

RegisterFly is the way to go for .NET domains. During a weekly 48 hour promotion period, you will be able to grab a .NET domain for only $2.99. Check out RegisterFly’s Fly Paper every week before Thursday EST to see what promotions they have.

Unfortunately, RegisterFly’s system does mess up very often and I will go into greater detail about how to use RegisterFly without pulling your hair out in another post. If you can’t get a $2.99 .NET domain from RegisterFly during the promotion period, get it from NameCheap.com at $7.98 instead with the latest coupon code from Domain Name Coupons.

.COM Domains

I choose NameCheap.com for .COM domains because their system is much more stable than RegisterFly. I am tempted by RegisterFly’s $6.99 promotion but for a $1.00 difference, I do not wish to go through all the drama to get RegisterFly to work properly.

.INFO Domains

RegisterFly used to have this crazy $0.60 .INFO domain sale every Friday morning EST. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Now they have increased the price to $0.75. If you’re only buying a couple of domains from RegisterFly, it would be manageable. If you plan to buy hundreds of them, I would recommend that you be mentally prepared to spend a lot of time fixing all the errors you get in RegisterFly’s system.

Reseller Club has caught up with RegisterFly with their “Mega Bargains Month” promotion. They are selling .INFO domains at $0.99. This is $0.24 more per domain than RegisterFly. I highly recommend you to avoid RegisterFly if you do not have a lot of time to burn. Just do a search on Google for “RegisterFly Complaints” and you will get what I mean.

Conclusion

I would normally avoid RegisterFly if I need to get my domains urgently. I used to plan my domain purchases around RegisterFly’s promotion period. Now, I simply purchase it from the alternative domain registrar as mentioned above.

RegisterFly is cheap but it comes at a price of your time. Everything that can go wrong might go wrong when you use RegisterFly. Their system is so crappy it is almost insane! In my next post I will detail how I use RegisterFly to purchase domains to get the most out of RegisterFly and to reduce my anger levels.

Tagged As: domain+registrar, domains, namecheap, registerfly, registrars, reseller+club

Categories: Internet Marketing | 1 Comment »